ROI – There’s an App for That, Part One: Apps that Generate Revenue

As you would imagine, every company that inquires about a mobile application wants to know the ROI. Of course, they want to earn revenues to pay off the development of the app. Well, there is much more to apps than revenue! Mobile apps can be divided into three main categories:

Apps that generate revenue

Apps that reduce operating costs

Apps for marketing and customer service

In the next three weeks, I will explain why each is beneficial and, more importantly, why each can still show a return. This week, I will cover mobile apps that generate revenue.

Apps that Generate Revenue

Mobile applications that generate revenue help recoup the costs of mobile app development and then ideally continue to bring in revenue. As mentioned in one of our previous blogs, “How to Earn Revenue with Mobile Apps,” there are two primary ways to generate revenue:

App Users

Advertisers

Depending on your business model, you can offer a free mobile app with in-app purchases, a free app with subscriptions, or sell an app on the app stores. Otherwise, you can include advertisements or have two separate versions: one that is free and has ads, as well as one that is paid and does not have ads. If you’re a smartphone or tablet user, you might have noticed that these types of revenue-generating apps often come in the form of media players, utilities, educational apps, personalization apps, or games.

Beyond making money via the app itself, there are many other great ways to earn revenues, such as offering a mobile commerce service or expanding a paid PC or web-based service to mobile. These types of apps extend your company beyond the PC/web, providing customers with access to your service anytime and anywhere. This gives customers another way or reason to buy your product or service.

As will be discussed in “Part Three: Apps for Marketing and Customer Service,” most mobile apps for marketing and customer service don’t typically charge end-users or include advertisements. There may not be app revenues in store for you, but there might be something more…

As for next week, I will discuss “Part Two: Apps that Reduce Cost,” outlining how you can use mobile apps to improve workplace efficiency.